Bartholomew County Sheriff Chief Deputy Maj. Chris Lane
Three of four additional funding requests from Bartholomew County Sheriff Chris Lane were approved by the Bartholomew County Council on Tuesday, but the most expensive proposal was unanimously denied.
By a vote of 4 to 3, the council gave their approval to hire two new merit deputies in August. Council members Matt Miller, Bill Lentz and Evelyn Pence voted against the proposal.
Each deputy will have a starting salary of $60,081. But after retirement and insurance benefits are added, the total will be $179,250 for both deputies, according to Bartholomew County Auditor Pia O’Connor.
After the new deputies are hired in August, they will be required to undergo 16 weeks of law enforcement training that will start in September at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy. That will be followed by 14 weeks of on-the-job field training with experienced deputies before they are allowed to work alone.
“We’ve lost 14 merit deputies in recent years,” Lane told the council. “If we add these two, it will help us keep the pace while we recruit.”
Although the sheriff’s department and Columbus Police provide comparable compensation, Councilman Mark Gorbett said the Indiana State Police pays a $70,000 entry level salary and is actively trying to recruit from other law enforcement agencies.
When training and experience are factored in, the county loses $150,000 every time a seasoned deputy resigns, Lane said.
Some council members cited a public perception that county government has already been overspending.
“The way we are spending, we will probably run out of money at some point,” council member Bill Lentz said.
Gorbett, a former two-term sheriff, said the county has “been on a spending spree” and he feels a need to “hit the pause button” until next year’s income becomes more clear during the August budget talks.
Council president Jorge Morales said he’s also concerned that nearly $3 million may be needed to upgrade the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system at the nearly 150-year-old Bartholomew County Courthouse.
“I’d rather move cautiously at this time,” Morales said.
Those remarks were made shortly before the seven-member council unaninimously voted to table a $189,000 proposal to adjust the salary matrix used to determine compensation for corrections staff and courthouse security. Lane said it was the most costly of his proposals.
Prior to the vote, Lane made the case that the jail started the new year with a staff deficit of 15 corrections workers. While that figure is now down to 11, it is still understaffed by 20% and four current corrections officers are in the process of being hired by other employers, the sheriff said.
By law, the jail must have a minimum of seven staff members working at all times, Lane said, so someone has to be called in on their time off to fill unexpected personnel gaps. As it stands now, the jail’s entire 2023 overtime budget of $150,000 will be spent by the end of May.
“A lot of our corrections staff have quit,” Lane said. “They tell us they are tired of working 70 hours a week.”
While Gorbett said he understood Lane’s frustration, he reminded the sheriff the council approved a 3½% raise last October. In February, an additional $800,000 was earmarked for salary increases, he said.
“That was a healthy-priced ticket item for our community,” Gorbett said. “I’ve seen other department heads coming forward with their own needs. We have to do a balancing act.”
The former sheriff also noted the council is only four months away from budget talks, and he wants to wait and see if the county can financially afford a wage war with other law enforcement departments. In addition, there are 91 other sheriffs in Indiana that are facing the same problems as Bartholomew County, Gorbett said.
If the county is financially able, Gorbett said the sheriff’s request might be approved late this summer and made retroactive to an earlier date. Another alternative discussed Tuesday was providing one-time bonuses.
In another request, the council gave their blessings to a raise in shift premiums for jail staff that Lane said will provide them parity with Indiana Department of Correction staff.
Those premiums for second and third-shift staff members at the jail will go up from $1.25 to $2.50 an hour, Lane said.
The total cost, including benefits, will be $46,832.63, he said.
The council also agreed to increase compensation for jail matron Bobbie Shake. Last year, former jail matron Vicki Thompson earned an annual salary of $53,604.
But Gorbett said the salary for that position was substantially cut by the council around 2007, which made the matron the lowest paid deputy.
After finding out that Shake has already earned $2,500 in overtime this year, Lane said he wanted to bring her compensation in line with other deputies.
Salary and benefits for Shake were increased by an additional $11,749. Miller was the only council member who voted against the raise.
